Cocktail Chronicles
An excellent blog by a man who has more cocktail books than I thought were published.

cocktailnerd
Gabriel has crafted a fine site and shares some of my pain with a state-run liquor system. He also manages to post about 4000 times more than me, and it’s always interesting!

Dave’s Drinks
Anyone who posts about exotic cocktails makes it on this blogroll!

Days That End In “Y”
An all-around drinking blog that posts quality news on the world of spirits, beer, wine, gadgets… the list goes on, as do the posts, which are too numerous to count. “Updated frequently” would be an understatement.

Dr. Bamboo
A fellow Pennsylvanian with a penchant for art and fine cocktails.

4:34pm – Robert Hess takes the mic to talk about bitters. He ran into Abbot’s bitters on ebay. It survived through prohibition, unlike many bitters, but it wasn’t made past the 60s. No one knows what happened to the company, family, or anything about its demise. After finding the ingredient list for Abbot’s bitters, Robert tried to recreate the bitters and failed. His next attempt was using tinctures, basically taking a single herb or botanical and soaking it in alcohol. This got him close and they became his house bitters. Here is Robert’s recipe for Abbot’s bitters.

50-50 Manhattan

1 1/2oz Rittenhouse 100-proof rye whiskey

1 1/2oz sweet vermouth

2 dashes Deragon’s Abbot’s bitters

orange peel, for garnish

Stir with crushed ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist the peel over the drink to release the oils.

4:43pm – Tonka beans, a potential ingredient for the bitters, aren’t allowed by the FDA since they contain a blood thinner, so bitter makers are looking for substitutes. Wikipedia on the Tonka bean

4:45pm – Paul grabs the mic and begins to talk about how he got into making his own ingredients. One of his first was a simple one, grenadine. The sample of Tequila por mi Amante makes it way around. The recipe is super simple. 1qt strawberries and 1 pint of tequila. Chop strawberries, cover and let sit for 3 weeks. Strain.

Marguerita

1oz Tequila por mi Amante

1/2oz Partida reposado

1oz St. Germain

1/2oz lime juice

Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

4:49pm – One of his favorite ways to mix it is with lime juice, a little salt, and grapefruit soda.

4:51pm – Paul moves on to a tiki staple, falernum. The first available was velvet falernum, and it was quite hard to find. He quickly began to develop his own recipes… now he’s at number 10. It’s surprising that he omits the lime juice, which is common for falernum used in tiki drinks.

5:09pm – Jamie again brings it with the smack. “I’m Freakin’ Lazy, but those damn spirit companies (you know who you are) don’t make what I want, don’t make what I want – but won’t give it to me, or charge too much for what I want.”

5:11pm – “I’m a media whore, and it gives them something to write about.” No really, Jamie makes his own liqueurs because he wants unique flavors. You can make adult syrups, wine and beer syrups, lambics, shrubs, etc. We now have a table full of cups, filled with cocktails, syrups, and craziness. This panel is excellent.

5:17pm – Jamie is now going into his unorthodox process of making bitters. The best way he found to maintain consistency was actually to avoid using the specific recipes. He places each flavor component for the bitters in a separate jar. This allows him to use different spirits to pull out flavors, like vodka for orange bitters or cognac for Christmasy spices.

5:20pm – Filtering is tough. A coffee filter takes -forever- and sucks. Jamie actually uses a water filter to strain the bitters. People worry the charcoal will wash away the flavors, but Jamie disagrees. Now it’s time for Jamie to bash Eric Seed (lovingly, mind you). He’s using Swedish punsch as an example; you don’t always have to start from scratch… you taste rhum agricole, tequila, scotch, cardamom, sugar… then Eric Seed comes out with Batavia-arrack. You can make a simple punsch just by adding cardamom and sugar. “The only reason we use the Batavia-arrack for Swedish punsch, so why didn’t he just make Swedisch Punsch?”

5:25pm – Now Jamie moves to Amer Picon. After first tasting and experiencing a new flavor, he immediately decided to rip it apart and figure out how to recreate it. Here is his Amer Picon recipe.

Nirvana Cocktail

2oz Rittenhouse 100-proof Sazerac Rye Whiskey

1oz Amer Picon Replica

1/4oz maraschino liqueur

1/4oz Benedictine

1 dash cherry bitters

Stir with crushed ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Here is another recipe to use the Amer Picon.

Liberal

1 1/2oz rye whiskey

1/2 sweet vermouth

1/4oz Amer Picon

1 dash orange bitters

orange peel, for garnish

Stir with crushed ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

5:33pm – Daniel from PDT is now talking about fat washing. Render the bacon, add it to the whiskey and freeze overnight. The fat floats around in a nice little ball, so just remove it. This tastes ridiculously good. The whiskey is so smoky, fatty and perfect. The Ben’s Old Fashioned uses this bacon whiskey, with maple syrup, and bitters.

5:38pm – Jamie was bored and drunk at home, so he took his leftover truffle popcorn and threw it in cognac. “It was almost like the essence of truffle in cognac.”

5:41pm – This panel has definitely served more cocktails and spirit samples than any so far. And for that, they should be commended.

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